We stayed an extra day in Playa Samara, splitting a hostel room with the Texans, but only shortly after learning that the Texans themselves are splitting. We felt like kids stuck between parents, until later that night, when we felt like parents trying to keep their drunk toddlers out of traffic.
The next day, we drug our belligerent new travel companions onto the bus headed for Monteverde.
Monteverde is an apt name. There are greens I haven't seen in nature. Looking out the bus window was like watching a Planet Earth panoramic. The hills are soft and rounded, with occasional trees crouching low against the skyline. A lot of the summits are bald, though, presumably because of deforestation.
As we gained altitude, the heat faded into chilly, misty breezes. And may I add a hallelujah? Samara reached stagnant body temperature.
About thirty seconds after getting off the bus, we were set upon by a hoarde of hostel and lodging representatives. They followed us down the street, yelling prices and shepharding us towards their establishments. We finally broke away and Chelsea found a well-rated hostel on TripAdvisor (which had NOT sent minions to hound us), and the Texans found room nearby.
We immediately signed up for a night hike, because most of the coolest animals are nocturnal (it's what it sounds like - guided hike through jungle at night). Chelsea also signed herself and the other two up for canyoning the next morning at 7:00 am, which was too expensive for this dude. What is canyoning, you ask? Oh, dear reader. Just you wait.
So that evening, Sarah, Chelsea and I boarded a night-hike bound van (Eli didn't come; he and Chelsea had a tiff which apparently was friendship ending as we've seen neither since bidding Sarah goodnight a few hours later).
There's an oft-repeated expression in Costa Rica. In Spanish, it's "pura vida," which I assume literally translates to "pure life" but seems to be (when not slapped on every souvineer that will hold still long enough) the rough equivalent of "right on."
Our night hike guide, however, used it as a punctuation.
This is a tarantula, found only in the mountains of my country. Pura vida. It will move when it feels vibration. Pura vida.
It must be stressful to have a job that is only successful with the cooperation of unwitting wild animals. Our guide seemed to be feeling this pressure. He kept darting off into the jungle, alternating between shouting "Don't get off the trail!" and making a kinkajou mating call.
We saw a tree frog and two distant porcupines, then a toucan (sleeping), then a green toucan (sleeping), then another brightly colored bird (sleeping). The kinkajou noises increased, full of desperation.
The guide left us again to examine some trees. We stood around, shining our flashlights at leaves and each other's faces, until Sarah inhaled sharply.
What's wrong?
I think something bit me.
Five or six flashlights panned down. Sure enough, we were standing on an anthill. Sarah had pinky-nail-sized ants crawling on the legs of her pants and over her feet. We were trying to brush them off when the guide appeared. He looked at us quietly for a moment, scanning the group, then landed on me.
My friend, you have many ants on your feet. I will help you. Pura vida.
I hesitantly looked down. Tiny red and brown ants completely covered the toes of my shoes. We got them off as best we could, but ants had progressed up Sarah's pants by now, so we had to get moving before things got worse. I would find ants on myself as I got ready for bed, three hours later.
So the hike continued, with only the occasional panicked slap.
The guide was very peculiar and insisted repeatedly that we stay very, very close to him. Every animal's description fit this basic formula:
This is the beautiful (animal/insect), native to the mountains of my county. There are (number) species in the world and (number) species in Costa Rica, my country, and only (number) species here in Monteverde. (Then, usually, "it is asleep.") Pura vida.
We were getting tired. At first, it had been thrilling to tromp around in the dark after tarantulas, but now we wanted to go home. We were seeing a lot of the same animals and at increasingly distant intervals.
But then he found the sloth.
All the individual groups had seen sloths already, separately, and the sloth in question was difficulty placed. We would have been happy going "oh, cool, a sloth" and continuing our hike. But no. This man had promised us nocturnal animals, and by god, we were going to see this sloth.
He sprinted into the woods, off the trail, and tried to highlight the sloth from different angles with his flashlight. When this failed, he encouraged us to follow him. So we grumblingly tripped through the long grass and hidden logs and clumped as we had been taught.
This sloth is a two-toed sloth, only native to the mountains of my country. It is not fat, as it looks! It only has long hair, just like my friend Amalia (here, he lifted a chunk of my hair as proof that it was, in fact, comparable to a sloth's). The sloth only comes down once a week for poop and peep. It will not poop and peep from the tree or big cats will smell it. It will come down once a week to bury it's poop and peep. Pura vida. Why are you laughing, Amalia?
Finally, the moon high in the sky and cicadas deafening us, we made it back to the van and were carted home, heads nodding in time with the rocky road. We bid our final goodnight to Sarah and fell asleep to the whistling mountain winds.
No comments:
Post a Comment